Interview
D: Good morning Mr. Yang. It's truly an honor to have you here and be able to converse some time with you. There are, of course, a lot of things we would like to know about the Avatar Comics and your experience while making them. G: Thanks so much for taking the time to talk to me. I wish I had more time to connect with people, maybe if I had better time management skills. D: So, first I'd like to know about how you got to know and started watching the series. G: I've been doing comics since my early twenties, it's been a while. My cartoonist friends, all around my age, first introduced me to the series. Now, many of my friends with kids are getting into it; their kids start watching it on Netflix, and then they themselves get hooked in. I watched it the first time with my wife, the second time with my kids, and then since signing on to do the comics, I've watched the whole thing over again just on my own. I've watched it three times all the way through, then certain episodes; I've watched over and over again Zuko Alone, for instance, countless times. D: What do you know about the reception of The Promise? What has been the reaction of the Avatar fans to the trilogy? G: I think it's been positive over all. I check goodreads.com pretty frequently, they're a community of readers. Have you been to their site? They comment about pretty much every book published in the American book market. I've had some readers e-mail me directly with both criticisms and complements, but it's been positive overall. Not everybody likes it, of course, and a lot of the criticisms I've gotten are legit. I've tried to take them to heart so I can improve on my future writing. I think I should have extended the scene in the first book where Aang makes the promise to Zuko, for example. This is really the first book I've written with page length constraints, so it took me a while to get used to it; with my own comics, I can make them as long or as short as I want. D: I guess you also have received critics about the 'sweetie' thing? G: Sure. :) I've heard from sweetie haters. I learned that me and my wife are dorks, basically; we call each other pet names all the time. :) We must be really annoying to our friends. I wanted the "sweeties" to be both a source of humor and an indication of the newness of Aang and Katara's relationship. As their relationship matures, the "sweeties" will get less frequent. I've seen that in the relationships of some of my friends, people who are in the early stages of love are usually GROSS. D: About the comic itself. I guess there's an amazing finale for the third part. What can you tell us about it? Will it have a direct connection with the next trilogy? G: In the third part, we want to give some resolution to the Harmony Restoration Movement dilemma. In all of The Promise, we're sowing the seeds for the new world. The Last Airbender took place in a world where cultures remained separate. of Korra takes place in a world where cultures live side by side, where they intermingle. So how do we get from the old world to the new? We want The Promise to begin to answer that question. So in Part 3, we're going to hint at how that might happen. The end of Part 3 says "the end", but to be honest, it's not much of an end, it's a set up for The Search, which will be out next year. D: What made you think of the idea of creating The Search? G: Well, The Search isn't really my idea. The comics all start with a conversation between Mike, Bryan, the Nick people, the Dark Horse people, and me. It's Mike and Bryan's world, they have the history of the Airbender/Korra world in their heads. Some parts are very clear, others are vague, so we talk through the vague parts and hammer it out. The big pieces of The Search were already in place; we know at least some of the back story because it was revealed in "Zuko Alone". Now don't get me wrong, Mike and Bryan gave me plenty of creative elbow room, but the emotional core of the story was already there, they'd already had it in place. I guess I should say that The Search was a collaboration, it was me building on top of their foundation with their input. :) Work with them has been really great. I've learned so much. D: So, basically, in The Search, Zuko and Azula start looking for their mother, right? How's Team Avatar's participation in the story? G: I'm not sure how much I'm supposed to say... but yes. The title refers to the search for Ursa. The Search will focus on the Fire Nation Royal Family, on Zuko and Azula and Ursa. Aang, Katara, and Sokka are their to support their friend, but they're not the focus of the story. D: Was it difficult to come up with and write Azula's character? G: Azula's voice in the original series was very clear, she's confident and conniving, always has the upper hand. In the comic, she's spent a significant amount of time in a Fire Nation asylum. How does that change her? We talked through that quite a bit before I started the script. We'll see how folks react to it. I don't think it was the particular character, it was the dynamic. The dynamic betweeen Azula and Zuko was difficult to write. We wanted it to feel new and fresh, not be a repeat of what had come before, but at the same time feel like a natural outgrowth of what came before. We do want to explore Zuko and Azula's relationship a little more. It's been a lot of fun, challenging, too.'' D: A probably tough question. What have you liked most so far, Avatar: The Last Airbender or The Legend of Korra? G: Ah, that's a tough one. I think the action is much better in Korra, but I'm still partial to the characters in the original series. It may just be that I've spent more time with Aang and his friends than Korra and hers. And even in the original show, the characters got more and more compelling as the series went on.'' D: Korra comics would be interesting. G: Korra comics would be great! I'd love them as a fan. I really feel like Korra Season 1 was too short, maybe they could flesh things out with comics. So many interesting characters that didn't get enough screen time. I would love to see more of Aang and Yakone's past. And I would have liked to spend more time with the Air Acolytes. See? Nick should have doubled the number of episodes. What'd you think of Zuko's descendant? D: Iroh? He was one of my favorite male characters in The Legend of Korra. Seemed to be a lot like Zuko, and I really hope he gets more screen in the upcoming seasons. G: I really liked his character too, but I could not get used to Zuko's voice coming out of his mouth. Zuko is such a singular character, my favorite from the original series. D: About Avatar Wiki. Do you still keep visiting the site sometimes? How has it helped you while writing the comics? G: Yes, I visit. I read up on character histories to remind myself, I look up information on weaponry when I'm writing fight scenes. It's really been helpful, especially with The Search. So much of The Search is about the past, I checked the Wiki constantly while I was scripting. You guys put a lot of work into it. D: Thank you. I'm glad it's been of help to you. :) And the last question: Have you heard news about The Last Airbender 2? G: No. Hm... I still haven't seen the first one, I refuse to. Part of the reason I got the writing gig was a webcomic I did calling for a boycott of the first movie ( http://humblecomics.com/blog/index.php?entry=entry100524-195255 ). An editor at Dark Horse saw that comic, she was also a fan of my other comics, so she called me and asked me if I wanted to work on the Airbender comics. D: Alright. Thanks for having answered to all the questions and accepting to come to this interview. :) I really appreciate you dedicate time to fans. G: No problem. I really appreciate your support and all the work you guys put into the wiki. It's been incredibly helpful.